We are the mom’s.

I read an incredible post about mom’s of suck kids recently. It explained that often we don’t know how we do what we do, etc.
Though the post was directed at physical illness, so much rang true for me, a parent of a mentally ill child. It could easily have crossed over to any special needs parent.
It got me thinking. Thinking of the guilt we carry, the quiet fears we hold,

and the long days and nights we push through.

Any of us with children battling illness hold so many of the same hopes and fears. Though the illness may not be the same, the journey is similar.

I think it is crucial for people to know just how similar dealing with a physically ill child (not cold or flu ill), and a mentally ill (not a typical sad day) child is.
Though I am very honestly grateful my children haven’t (since toddlerhood anyway), been physically ill enough to send me into the fear of loosing them.
And I in no way shape or form think these illnesses are less than the bipolar, etc my son suffers from.
I often look at these fellow “illness” parents in awe.
As they take their children for treatments, hospital stays, tests, I often think to myself, I don’t know how they handle it, how they carry on day to day. I would be a disaster.
Then I think, I’m literally doing virtually the same. Just different doctors, different tests, and different hospitals.
As they fight with feeding tubes and monitors, I fight with med accuracy and self harm.
In the world of physically ill children, you meet fellow parents, with similar stories. You bond, form friendships and draw strength from one another.
In the world of mentally ill children, you don’t. At least in my case the only fellow parents of bipolar children are across the globe. Though I am thankful for this, because it’s not as common as certain disorders or diseases, it means that the fellow parents aren’t there. There’s no support groups, there’s no meeting those few fellow parents, because you never meet in the halls of the ward, with a simple smile and nod that soon forms into a solidarity of mom’s.
I am grateful for my fellow “illness” mom’s who though their illness is not similar to ours, are there.
Truth be known any illness changes a parent. We know how hard, painful and isolating it is.
So no matter what your child is going through, you are the first to offer help, an ear a hug.
And I am so incredibly grateful for those mom’s, I am so incredibly grateful for the adults that have come out of the wood work with their own stories to let me know we’re not alone.
No matter what battle our angels are fighting, we are a group of our own.
We’re the mom’s that know medical terms better than some doctors, we’re the mom’s that celebrate and cherish the littlest of moments, we’re the mom’s with no social life aside from trips to the Doctor, we’re the mom’s going no sleep for months on end, we’re the mom’s that at times feel useless, completely alone and terrified.
We are the mom’s that don’t know how many days, months, years we have.
We are truly the mom’s of the greatest lessons life has to offer.
And from them we learn.
Strength.
Courage.
Determination.
Hope.
Love.
Gratefulness.
Compassion.